


Clean

by mustinvestigate



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 01:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustinvestigate/pseuds/mustinvestigate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hrm...I wanted to get Rorschach naked. So I packed every possible cliché around that idea and called it a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_What is it about crime bosses and saunas?_ Nite Owl wondered, watching from a handy rooftop as the police first discovered then officially arrested Big Figure and his crew of comically oversized thugs. _You trace them back to their lair, their inner sanctum, and nine times out of ten, you’ll find a tubby globe of body hair steaming his genitals under a loose towel while he gives his simmering brutes their marching orders._

He grinned behind his fist. _And the shrinks say us masks are exorcising our secret perversions out here…_

It had been a fascinating exercise, at least – the rush of cold outside air making swirls of steam between them and the sweating, fully suited thugs; bodies jostling in the tight space, unable to draw a weapon or even grapple properly; Rorschach, grabbed from behind, kicking off from the wall and knocking three down like soft dominos…

His partner was more suited for this close work, eeling between bodies and leaving twisted limbs in his wake. Nite Owl had dropped back after his first few punches and kicks were embarrassingly truncated by their short arcs and simply hauled bodies out to give his partner more room to manoeuvre, to make his way closer to the diminutive man that had wedged himself in the upper, hottest corner.

It had been far, far harder to finally bag Big Figure than either of them expected. With the walls protecting two sides and his feet at nose level, he kicked and twisted and generally made it impossible to get a grip on him, even after his towel had fluttered cheerily to the floor.

Nite Owl *snng*ed and stepped forward to help his partner, who’d jumped several feet away as the fabric fell, revealing Little Big Figure nested in a primeval forest of pubic hair.

“Mine!” Rorschach growled, before Nite Owl could force his way into the limited space, and dove back into the fight.

Nite Owl had shrugged and went back to secure the thugs who were slowly coming around. He could have sworn that the blots of the mask, almost totally black now from the heat, looked like someone trying to glare through tightly shut eyelids. Rorschach had done most of the legwork on this one, after all, following the tainted batch of heroin along a trail of dead schoolkids, both junior junkies and runners who’d learned too much about Figure’s supply chain.

 _Let him have his closure_ , Daniel thought, also more than a little happy escape the intense funk of fermented sweat for the moderately clearer back alley air. Rorschach had eventually dumped Big Figure, who looked like someone who’d dressed both at gunpoint and mid-shower, on the pile of trussed criminals with a mightily displeased grunt and stalked up the fire escape that would take them to Archie’s hiding place with more looping gusto than usual, leaving Nite Owl to phone in the standard anonymous tip.

Nite Owl winced now as a fresh-faced uniform grabbed the small man by his ankles and pitched him bodily into the back of the riot van.

 _That’s just bad form_ , he thought, automatically listening for his partner’s grunt of approval.

It didn’t come. Nite Owl turned to see Rorschach swaying on his feet.

“Hey,” he said, almost violating one of the man’s many unspoken cardinal rules by reaching out to steady him. Daniel let his arm drop and hovered instead.

“Fine,” Rorschach grunted. “We’re done for tonight.”

He turned and hoisted himself into Archie with the same loose motions he’d used on the fire escape, overreaching and catching himself on the rebound, settling into the co-pilot’s seat expectantly. Nite Owl took three careful breathes before following. _Both tired,_ he told himself. _Home. Sleep._

He snorted. _When did my inner voice start dropping pronouns?_

Daniel pushed back his goggles and cowl as he settled Archie in her cradle. Rorschach had spent the brief trip home staring grimly out the front window, which wasn’t exactly unusual, but he’d hoped his partner would be in what passed for a good mood after finally putting his latest nemesis away. This usually involved slightly more upbeat muttering about filth and depravity, over coffee (Rorschach’s two-thirds sugary sludge), while the sky lightened toward dawn outside his kitchen window. It wasn’t much, and it didn’t happen very often, but Daniel had been stocking sugar cubes in bulk for the previous four years.

 _Not going to be one of those nights_ , he thought regretfully, powering down the ship. His hair was tacky with half-dried sweat, and he didn’t even want to think about the state of his feet under layers of socks and armoured boots. The amusement factor of fighting steamed-dumpling thugs had completely worn off, and he wanted nothing more than a hot shower and cool bedsheets in his immediate future.

His daylight desires had narrowed so damn much since he’d seriously taken on the cowl. There’d been a time when he had a social life, awkward dates with co-eds who needed to be signed back into their dorms by nine, even more awkward liaisons with a handful of strangers in alleys behind Village bars that needed to culminate before a police’s flashlight swept the narrow space. Now, he slept until nearly noon, tinkered in the basement and watched the news until dusk, sometimes making minor adjustments to the fiscally continent portfolio his father had left him until just before the market closed. It was a frighteningly solitary life, while the sun was up, and he was continually surprised by the growing isolation. Hollis had warned him, but it was still unbelievable, how little he could stir himself to touch base with the ordinary world he was defending.

He met new people every night, of course, but he didn’t make many new friends.

Rorschach didn’t move when he turned off the lights and stood up. Daniel smirked – the Scourge of the Underworld had nodded off like a kid on the way home from Grandma’s.

Somehow, on the good nights, this partnership almost made up for it. Captain Metropolis was offputtingly eager to be a mentor, the Comedian and Ozymandias bugged him in entirely individual ways, and the teenager and the god were embarrassingly wrapped up in their little romance, but the faceless psychopath who mooched his kitchen bare – even the thought that he’d been there before and would return soon enough – chased the loneliness away.

Exactly how that happened, Daniel didn’t want to examine too closely. He suspected it was like a pinned butterfly: concrete from a distance, but the merest breathe of close attention would disintegrate it.

 _Now – how to wake him up without having my ballsack relocated to my throat?_

“Rorschach?” he crooned. “Wake up. We’re…um…we’re home?”

No movement. “Rorschach?”

Still nothing. He risked a quick poke to the shoulder. When even that failed to get a reaction – particularly the roundhouse to the jaw he was expecting – Daniel began to worry.

He gingerly worked his fingers into the space between the scarf and mask, expecting with every heartbeat to be kicked into the console, and checked for a pulse. It was there, beating fitfully, but the skin was hot and dry. He turned on the internal lights and tugged the scarf away to reveal a red, flushed neck.

Momentarily distracted by the closeness of ginger stubble and freckles, Daniel though back to his lifeguard training from nearly a decade before. He remembered with growing guilt the long stake-out through the muggy July night – he’d had a canteen, which Rorschach refused, as usual – before they were sure the bulk of Figure’s force was inside, the effort of incapacitating the outer ring of security, the coup-de-grace of an extended tussle in 180-degree heat, in what had to be at least five layers of fabric.

He pummelled his tired brain, thinking first of the treatment for heat stroke and dehydration (put in cool environment, push clear liquids, remove restrictive clothing, seek professional medical attention) and cross-indexed those results with known actions that would bring Rorschach to a murderous rage (all of the above).

Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose and came to a decision. First – get him out of Archimedes.

He levered his partner out of the seat into a fireman’s hold, staggering under the unexpected weight. For a little guy, Rorschach was solid. Daniel found himself hoping he’d stay in a medically dangerous swoon at least as long as it took him to get up the stairs.

Daniel settled Rorschach on the spare bed, wincing at the marks his shoes left on the cover. The guest bedroom was one of the few rooms with wiring that could handle a window ac unit, and now he turned the machine on high. The cold air suddenly blowing on his belly made him shiver.

 _Next_ , he thought, _Next, remove restrictive…force clear liquids. Yes, definitely liquids. Are the next step._

Daniel filled his mother’s fancy pitcher, a vaguely art deco piece like a fishbowl with a spout, with lukewarm tap water in the kitchen and brought it and a mug into the rapidly cooling room. He propped Rorschach up on headboard like an oversized doll and carefully touched the edge of the mask – now almost entirely black – and when that didn’t get a reaction, rolled it up over the mouth.

 _Huh,_ he thought. _Latex. Makes sense, I guess. How does he breathe, though? How does he even see?_

Rorschach almost roused when Daniel put the mug to his lips, trying to remember exactly how you forced liquids on an unconscious person without drowning them. It had only been a ticky box on the multiple-choice test, needed to pass to get his certification to sit in the high chair ogling wet classmates all summer: force clear liquids. He thought it might have been option ‘B,’ or maybe had fallen under ‘D’: all of the above.

Some liquid went between the cracked lips, spilled across the clenched teeth and down the chin. The unconscious man moved his head and mumbled, weakly clenching his fists. Daniel shifted to grip Rorschach’s jaw and tried again, thinking that almost a mugfull made it into his mouth this time. Maybe.

A loose fist landed on his knee before his partner slumped into unconsciousness again.

 _Right, so, that was liquids,_ he thought firmly, setting the jug and mug on the coffee table within easy reach of the invalid. _They’ve been forced._

 _Fuck_ , he thought, fisting his tired eyes. _I know how to suture a knife wound and wrap up broken ribs and minimise visible bruises, but I had no idea I should have been studying up on desert-manoeuvre emergencies._

Daniel warily eyed the unconscious man as if he would spring back to wakefulness and strangle him at any second. _Next_ , he told himself reluctantly, _remove restrictive clothing_.

He tugged off the leather gloves first, then the shoes and socks. His partner’s feet were narrow, white, and vulnerable. The socks were more hole than material, sad things that almost disintegrated without toes to give them shape. He left them on the carpet.

The rest…

It was difficult enough to get the trench coat off. It wanted to stay wrapped around its familiar body, the belt’s buckle catching on the cover and pillows, and crackled when Daniel folded it over his arm and set it on the armchair.

Daniel shuddered.

He was used to the smell. He patrolled a few feet from the guy in all seasons, and Rorschach always smelled like someone who slept on a pallet of rotting newspapers and worked double shifts on a garbage truck. For all Daniel knew, he did. He knew the way that scent changed after a fight, shot through with the oily-iron tang of spent adrenaline, and thought of it as a daybreak marker, more reliable than birdsong. Daniel didn’t know where he slept when Rorschach didn’t sack out for a few hours on the cot in the basement, what he did during the daylight hours, what name everyone else called him.

Meanwhile, he suspected Rorschach knew his social security number and the state of his stock portfolio better than Daniel did.

It was strong – old blood, lived-in sweat – but what grabbed Daniel’s attention was the grime worked into the seams of the dark purple trousers. The knees were shiny with the slime of a hundred alleys. The cuffs were black with – he didn’t want to think what could have stained them that shade.

Daniel twitched.

His father had always hated that. Neatness was certainly a virtue in a son, a boy who would hang up his clothes instead of leaving them in a trail between bedroom and bathroom and would leave dirty dishes in the sink instead of his bedsheets, but fastidiousness was another matter. No father wanted to catch his teenage son ironing his shorts, and he certainly didn’t want to hear it was because his wife didn’t use the right amount of starch.

There was no chance those clothes were comfortable.

 _Well, he can’t just take them into a laundromat, can he? Sure, plenty of men wear pinstripe suits and trench coats, but not blood-stained ones that smell like roofing tar. Would he take that risk?_

Daniel rescued the once-white scarf easily enough, trying not to linger on the suddenly exposed neck. He dropped it with the socks and paused, uncomfortably certain Rorschach already lay naked in front of him. There were still at least three layers to go.

The man would end up in the hospital if Daniel didn’t cool him down, but Rorschach would kill him for doing so.

He found himself thinking of his sophomore-year girlfriend, an “outdoorsy” girl who’d been the sweeper on the school field hockey team, who made him attend her yoga class at the Y for several interminable weeks, who actually enjoyed getting up at dawn just to go running. Marsha – her name was Marsha. A nice girl. Last he’d read in the alumni newsletter, she was still doing social work. A department supervisor already, if in the Bronx.

What had she told him? About the locker room, after practices? He pictured her snickering, her auburn hair glowing in candlelight, the little tea light on the table of what he thought was a properly fancy restaurant for taking out one’s girlfriend of six months. Marsha’s team had just washed out of the collegiate semi-finals, but she was laughing over her teammates, the girls who blushed and wrapped up like mummies, while Marsha took a real shower and changed her clothes – “like a normal human being.” The other girls barely ducked under the shower head in a communal washroom, and changed with towels larger than themselves clutched around their lovely young flesh, not even touching their own skin while they whipped off uniforms and slipped on street clothes underneath that shelter.

Daniel hadn’t gotten any that night, if he recalled correctly. It had taken more than a pricey dinner and a Broadway show to get into her pants – a late-night espresso-fuelled cram session had done the trick, though, a few weeks later. He grinned nostalgically as he manhandled Rorschach under the covers and set to work.

* * *

Rorschach woke a few hours later, all at once, to a world turned terrifyingly inside-out. He struck out at what looked like a leering enemy next to his bed, registering the peculiar chime of thick glass striking a hardwood floor but not breaking. It made him think of goldfish.

Then, he realised that he was naked, covered only by a flimsy beige sheet, and not even on his own bed but a thick soft mattress, but not until he’d jumped to his feet.

His leg muscles chose that moment to point out to him that they had all been on the verge of cramping, and – what the hell – all spasmed in one go.

He fell back on the mattress, which gave under his weight and deposited him on the floor.

He touched his face and was relieved to feel the gentle give of latex over his lips.

 _So, most likely not prisoner,_ he thought mushily, before noticing that the bulbous water pitcher lying next to his elbow still contained at least half its water, just as he realised he was dying of thirst.

The scum always went for the masks, when having the upper hand. As if they’d recognise the false faces underneath, to tell underworld or media.

Made for easy regaining of said upper hand. Bastards always used one hand to reach for face, leaving part of you free…bad mistake. Waking up with face unmolested meant he was not at the mercy of one of those…freaks.

He nearly choked on the water, sucking down two quarts in ten seconds flat. It flattened the fishhooks in his throat. As he put the pitcher aside, he suddenly hoped it had not been drugged, and cursed himself for his weakness.

It was not the best morning he’d ever had, but far from the worst.

The room was chilly, but not cold enough to fog his breath. Walter scrambled to his feet, wrapping the sheet tightly around himself. Rorschach growled and kicked it loose, needing to prepare for the inevitable ambush even though his legs trembled painfully. Walter clutched the sheet around his shoulders before it could slip away.

Rorschach looked around the room and – the way a vase suddenly becomes two profiles – recognised it as a room in Daniel’s townhouse, just vulgar with bright colors when it should be shadowed in dark greys. He relaxed, infinitesimally. This wasn’t home – it was the basement and, somewhat less, the kitchen that offered the same comfort level of a long-ago institutional dorm – but he wasn’t likely come under attack here.

Attack. He remembered – Big Figure. They’d got Big Figure, after all these weeks…the red and blue lights in the alley below them, and the steel in his bones that had kept him upright turned to water.

He remembered – Nite Owl, suckling on his horrible Boy Scout canteen, holding it out as if an instrument of vengeance could ever be prey to the petty weaknesses of thirst and hunger. His eyes lingered on the place Daniel’s lips had touched.

He remembered – the sucking, sapping heat. The…towel…and underneath…

Rorschach shuddered like a wet dog and forced the image from his mind, but other sensations invaded in its place: skin slick with sweat twisting under his gloves, leaving little hairs behind on his sleeve…legs spreading in a kick, opening a dank maw in between…

He gagged, forcing himself to keep the lukewarm water in his stomach. “Filth…displaying…why…ngh!”

Someone knocked tentatively on the door to his right. Rorschach threw himself against it, listening to the rapid breathing on the other side.

“Um, Rorschach? You’re awake?” Daniel’s voice, of course. Sounding tired – still running on adrenaline, even in his own house.

“Where are my clothes?” he growled, bracing himself against the wood in case Daniel had any ideas of opening it. Rorschach would throttle him soon enough. When he was covered. Armoured. Which would be very soon.

“You were unconscious, Rorschach – I had to!” Daniel’s voice squeaked, and Rorschach had the sudden intuition that Daniel was bracing the door on his side as well, knowing what was to come.

“Could have woken me up. Not – not…where’s my –”

“You were completely dehydrated and probably had a heat stroke – and if I didn’t get you cooled down here, I’d have had to take you to the hospital.”

Rorschach grunted.

“I’d have had to remove your face, to get you into a hospital,” Daniel offered hopefully.

Rorschach belatedly realised, with a painful rush of blood to his cheeks…and…elsewhere…that Daniel had undressed him. Clothes didn’t just disappear…they were removed. By hands. He’d stripped…he’d seen…

“Give back my clothes!” Rorschach roared, punching the door.

“I just put them in the dryer!” Daniel yelled back, and Rorschach heard light shuffling steps as his partner retreated from the door and fell into a defensive stance.

Rorschach shifted his weight to kick the door open but lost his balance, bracing himself on the sofa. The cramps were easing, but leaving horrible, crawling pins and needles in their wake. His head throbbed sickeningly. So did his…what shouldn’t be rubbing tantalisingly against the small movements of the sheet.

“My clothes, Daniel,” he groaned. “Mine!”

“They _really_ needed a wash,” Daniel insisted, from down the hallway.

Rorschach rested his burning forehead on the door. He lifted a hand from underneath the sheet, expecting to see it steam from the heat under his skin, and grimaced at the milk-pale fingers. He tried to think of the next steps, steps that would lead to those shaking hands around that throat until the eyes bulged, but nothing came to mind.

He couldn’t hurt Daniel. He was going to kill Daniel.

“Rorschach, I – ” the voice came a little closer. “If it matters, you were covered up the whole time. I wouldn’t…y’know…look. And I wouldn’t leave you, er, exposed.”

“Oh.” Rorschach was _not_ disappointed. He didn’t believe Daniel, anyway.

“There’s clothes outside the door you can wear until yours are dry, okay?”

Rorschach didn’t answer, instead mulling over exactly what “covered up the entire time” could mean in some degenerate code.

“Look, I’m really sorry, but you’re my partner, man! I couldn’t just dump you on the tracks downstairs to fend for yourself.”

“Should have.”

Daniel snorted. “Well, I didn’t. What I’m doing is making breakfast, if you want some. Or the bathroom’s across the hall if you want a shower first.”

Did Daniel sound hopeful in that last sentence? Really hopeful? _Yes. Yes he did._

Silently, Rorschach snarled while Walter cringed. “Leave, Daniel.”

He waited until the footsteps had retreated and the faint rattle-hiss of pans on an elderly gas range had continued through a count of one-hundred before ripping the door open and snatching up the pile. It looked like a suit – lush twilight blue, a color that would not suit Daniel’s complexion, Walter-the-dressmaker immediately appraised – and a light herringbone trench. Vest. Soft black socks. Y-fronts, still in plastic. Something glinted next to the doorway. Two somethings, in fact.

Walter slammed the door before popping the cap from the first sweating green bottle of ice-cold cola and decided Daniel could live another day.


	2. Chapter 2

_Father Poponian regarded the silent, scowling boy on the other side of his olive-drab desk and fought the creeping weariness that made his shoulders want to hunch and his carefully genial expression collapse. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had to have this conversation – neglected children, sadly, often lacked not only affection and guidance but even modelling in the basic elements of human dignity – and he suspected this was one that would go badly. Remembering the boy’s file, the chaplain wondered bleakly if he’d ever even been bathed in a kitchen sink, mother tenderly counting the toes underneath soap bubbles._

“Son,” he began, suppressing a grimace when the boy twitched bodily. His expression remained stony.

“Young man,” Father Poponian began again. “As I know you’re aware, there are some standards we expect everyone to meet. You need to keep up with your studies – which you certainly have – treat your peers and teachers with respect – and again, we’ve certainly found no fault with you there! But how you present yourself, Walter…”

Cut to the chase _, the padre thought, watching the small face close even further. “As they say, young man – cleanliness is next to godliness.”_

A line of red worked its way down the immobile features, and Father Poponian cleared his throat.

“You know,” he said, “They didn’t always say that. ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ It was quite the opposite in the early days of the church.”

A flicker of the eyes in his direction was encouraging. “The first leaders and saints actually discouraged bathing, for the devout. It was in reaction to the dominant Roman culture, you see, particularly the famous Roman baths. They may have cleansed the body, but, well, they were also often places of sin. They dirtied the soul. And it probably didn’t hurt that an unclean and smelly skin certainly didn’t encourage any, well, sinful thoughts in others!”

The boy met and held his gaze then, listening. Father Poponian warmed to his subject.

“So, for many centuries, holy men and women only felt the touch of Holy Water for their entire adult lives. St Benedict and St Francis of Assisi were two you might have heard of who espoused this view – I’m sure you know of St Francis, at least. The friend to animals?”

The boy shook his head.

“Hrmm. Well, here.” He snagged his battered copy of Lives of the Saints _from the bookshelf behind him. “You might find this an interesting read.”_

The boy took it from his hands, warily, and flipped to a random page near the end, then back near the beginning. The chaplain watched him read. He’d been a surprisingly well behaved charge over the past six months, given the circumstances that brought him to the Home for Problem Children. Where other boys had transitioned easily from street life to the circumspect pleasures of the dorm gangs, Walter seemed to have embraced the discipline his teachers offered. Outside of classes and mealtimes, he could most often be found cross-legged on his bed, stolidly churning through his schoolwork.

The chaplain made a mental note in his overstuffed to-do list to keep a closer eye on this boy. It wasn’t unheard of for children from his background to hear the call, given a little quiet space and attention.

“Saint Benedict,” the boy said, eyebrows rising in surprise. “’To those that are well, and especially for the young, bathing shall seldom be permitted.’ Hrmm.”

“Yes, well,” Father Poponian replied, realising he’d oversold the wrong case and a little unnerved the boy had found the appropriate passage so quickly. “The Black Plague did put an end to that particular school of thought. An unclean body encourages fleas and other unhealthy particles, and is unpleasant for others to be near. There’s no spiritual enlightenment to be found in neglecting the body the Creator has given you.”

The boy slipped the book under his American History text.

“You can keep that as long as you like,” the chaplain said. “As long as you promise me that you’ll take a proper shower after every gym class. And in the morning when you don’t have a class. Promise?”

Rorschach moved uncomfortably inside the far-too-large suit jacket and regarded the bathroom with suspicion. The sunflower-yellow tiles gleamed and oozed the scents of lemon and bleach.

Through that, he smelled bacon and melting cheese, slithering up from the kitchen below.

It wasn’t a room for a human body to stand in, let alone strip away and leave behind its filth. It was a room for admiring from a distance, to carefully seal in cellophane for future generations to admire.

His one-room tenement apartment came with rights to a bathroom down the hall, shared by the entire floor. The mold there thrived out from the grout in swirls around hectic splotches of hair and semen, intimate cast-offs of the great roiling mass outside his door. Walter bathed at his own sink, quickly working a washcloth around and underneath his clothes before heading off to the garment district. It did well enough. No one complained.

To his face.

His stomach growled, taunted by the promise of food. He moved to violate the sanctity of the showroom, flipping his face up under his nose and cupping his hands under the cold tap, sucking greedily. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he sighed.

His chin was now noticeably cleaner than the rest of the visible skin, which had a greyish tint.

Rorschach wanted his own clothes. Possibly breakfast. It was Sunday, so no work to rush off to, but he wanted to leave. To sleep. To start what new lines of investigation could be accomplished in the glare of daylight. None of these…complications. These aches.

Daniel’s socks felt very, very nice inside his shoes.

He wiggled his toes darkly, refusing to enjoy the comfortable stretch of fabric. He needed to not have comfortable socks. He would think of them when he ran through puddles, soaking his shoes. He didn’t want trousers that would show a new stain if he shinnied down a tar-covered spout. He didn’t want the softness of new cotton against his chest, spoiled by trickles of sweat.

Was better to have clothes that wouldn’t change if he chased human sewage down a manhole. No hesitation.

But – he’d seen the mattress, as he dressed. The imprint. A perverse shroud of Turin on the cream-colored fabric, the lines of his skinny shanks clearly visible. Fainter sketches on the sheet that had covered him.

Walter had stripped the bed, stuffed the sheets in the back corner of the closet behind a dusty set of football padding, and shot across the hall.

Rorschach closed and locked the bathroom door. Walter unlocked it, darted next door into Daniel’s study and returned with a chair, which he wedged under the doorknob.

He pinched and tugged on his sleeve. _Good material_ , he thought grudgingly. _Strong. Will be easy to take in to proper size – only an afternoon’s work. Pinstripes wouldn’t suit him, anyway. Wrong build. What hack sold him this?_

Rorschach stripped, refusing to double-check that the door was secure, and ducked into the relative safety of the shower stall. He crouched to examine the ominous crystal knob that seemed to be the sole control and risked a careful tug. A patter of lukewarm water on his neck rewarded the effort, and he quickly ascertained that a twist to the right was hot and cold to the left; pulling it out from the wall intensified the stream; and it could roll in any direction like a hip joint, as well. Feeling experimental, he pushed it upward, and the showerhead…pulsed.

He shuddered away from the revolting sensation and settled the knob dead center: weak stream, lukewarm water. More than sufficient for the job.

Except he then nudged the control in hairline degrees to the right until it was as hot as he could stand, telling himself it was more efficient. Quicker to wash anything in heated water. He wasn’t savoring the dissipation of filtered, drinkable gallons as it soothed away the lingering muscle cramps, just relief at having his full range of motion back.

He wasn’t sniffing the soap that smelled of Daniel.

Rorschach pulled his face off with one brusque gesture, setting it inside-out on the soapdish, and rubbed suds over his cheeks and closed eyes. He didn’t know a name for the scent – something like trees might smell, but only in a very clean forest, free of rotting debris and the picked-over carcasses of prey. There were bottles of shampoo and something called “conditioner” but he ignored them, rubbing the bar from his face into his hair and dunking the whole mess under the stream when the soap slipped from his hands.

Grey suds sluiced from his body to the drain. He breathed in snuffling lungfuls of the sweet-tree steam and noticed two darker places on the linoleum below. He adjusted his feet to match them, a slightly wider stance and closer to the showerhead.

 _This where Daniel stands_ he knew, and shivered, surrounded by the scent of his partner, imagining him in this space day after day, naked, and wet, and rubbing…

 _Oh…hell._

Rorschach was free of petty lusts, entirely focused on his mission. Walter, less so. It was Walter who wrestled the wet mask down over his ears and chin, seeking to block out the loathsome enticements, but this only intensified the smell of the soap lingering on heated skin.

He choked off a moan.

The soap was next to his heel, slowly dissolving into mush. He picked it up and stoically, deliberately, pushed suds around his shoulders, down his arms. It was easy to imagine Daniel doing the same. Nite Owl’s light armor could deflect a switchblade but did not breathe well, and on many early mornings he would strip naked to the waist in the brief minutes it took to bring the Owlship in underneath the city. Skin left with a pungent sheen, drying to goosebumps under Archie’s internal vents. Rorschach took no notice.

Walter moved on to his chest, stomach clenching as he brushed pointlessly sensitive bits. Which was most of his skin, suddenly. Still, he scraped every inch, digging in with his ragged fingernails. Anything to put off the inevitable moment when he’d no longer be someone virtuously bathing and instead…

“Mmph.”

Walter moved down his stomach, rubbing in slow, reluctant circles.

He gritted his teeth, thinking of the degenerates they stumbled across at least weekly, old men sucking off raggedly pretty hustlers in shadowed parks, husbands and fathers trading Polaroids of other people’s children, sick men sharing their diseases in the filthy alleys behind Village bars. All the churning sickness of twisted brains, polluting the city as much as their own bodies.

But those images wouldn’t linger, not with the clean smell of Daniel, the vision of him twisting under the water, rinsing water from his face, his back, his…

Walter licked his lips and whimpered, tasting soap. He longed for something to derail this loathsome process, but it had gained crushing momentum. Nothing else for it but to…

He groaned as his brain actually formed the phrase _…grab bull by the horn_ , and put action to words. He squeezed, experimentally, feeling slightly cooler liquid ooze to the tip, washed away a moment later. He ground his molars together, feeling the ache build already, glad it would be over soon, wishing he had more time to stop himself, glad again it was nearly done, with his partner not ten feet below awaiting his return.

Possibly wondering, what was delay. Likely to worry, to come check?

Nite Owl had different technique with locked doors than Rorschach, but nearly as effective. Even the chair braced under the knob would be no challenge. What if he were to pull back shower curtain, look in – intentions purely honourable, of course, concerned expression – find him…in state…

Walter slid a soapy hand down his buttock, squeezing in counter time to other, wrong, movements, eyes wide and watching the shadows change on his face as if in rainfall, tension tightening and sinking like the leap from owlship to street, and the realisation hit him again like a kick to the solar plexus, both hands flying to the wall for support.

Daniel had seen him. Had stripped him bare. In better state than now. And locked him away, sent him to bathe. Wrinkled his nose and covered offensive thing.

Daniel was good. Better than Walter, better than Rorschach, even. He’d be disgusted. He was disgusted.

 _Derailment. Good. Had almost given up hope. Almost succumbed._

But didn’t.

Good.

Rorschach braced himself and yanked the knob to the left until it snapped off in his hand.

* * *

Daniel tried not to sigh in relief when a herd of elephants stomped down the stairs. He’d started to seriously worry his partner had drowned.

“Leave any for the fishes?” he called.

The footsteps paused. “Shower broken. Made in Malaysia – child labor. You should know better. Have implemented stop-gap solution.”

“What solution is – no, nevermind. Don’t tell me. I’ll fix it later.” Daniel tried to remember what was in his bathroom that could possibly be used to turn off a broken faucet, and came up blank. He almost looked forward to discovering the Rube Goldberg invention that waited in his show stall.

“There’s a plate in the oven for you,” he said. “Just scrambled eggs and bacon.”

Daniel grinned in anticipation of the reprimanding: _Not kosher, Daniel._ It was on the tip of his tongue already: _What part of Secular Humanist did you need defined, again?_

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

“What part of…” Daniel trailed off and looked in the direction of his partner’s trembling, accusing finger at the ironing board in front of him. On which was an elderly pair of boxer shorts.

“Ah,” he breathed, and whipped the half-wrinkled garment out of sight, into the brown grocery bag that held the rest of Rorschach’s perfectly pressed and folded outfit. He held it out as a shield. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. The iron was still hot, and…it’s more habit than anything else. Really.”

Rorschach clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. The rocking pattern on his face looked to Daniel like one figure throttling another. Or, in a gentler world, playing patty-cake. He’d clearly transgressed one of Rorschach’s more important masculine boundaries.

He tried to shrug it off. “Hey, lots of guys iron their shorts. I do, for one. They feel nicer that way.”

Daniel’s nerveless fingers dropped the bag as Rorschach silently launched himself across the kitchen. He felt nothing more than a puff of wind, though, as Rorschach snatched up the bag and disappeared down the basement stairway, slamming the door behind.

Heart pounding, Daniel tried not to think on how goddamned adorable the vigilante had looked, stomping away with his trousers rolled up and a jacket hanging nearly to his knees.


	3. Chapter 3

Rorschach paced the length of the cramped storage room with such ferocity that, when he abruptly stopped and perched silently among the boxes near the door, Nite Owl felt compelled to take over. He watched his own footprints appear in the centimetres of dust that covered every surface and restrained the urge to point out, again, that the only tracks in sight were their own. Discounting the trails left by generations of mice and even less appealing vermin, of course.

“Should have let me break his finger,” his partner muttered. It was maybe the third sentence he’d offered since Nite Owl had come downstairs to found him sitting on Archimedes’s roof, impatient to be off. And the first two weren’t particularly edifying, just: _Last of the batch will be moving tonight. Not much time to find out where, and who._

“If he heard the wrong rumor, breaking bones wasn’t going to get us the right tip.”

“He lied. Should have been sure.”

“The guy was swallowing his tongue when you were only talking. He’d have given you his mother wrapped in a shiny bow to get your hands off him. The tip was good, or he just thought it was good.”

Splotches near the jawline moved. He muttered, “Weak, Daniel.”

Nite Owl stiffened, feeling his hands curl into fists of their own volition. Daniel might be weak. Unlike the rest of the masks, he didn’t even have a day job to keep up with, using the time to build and perfect gadgets – essential equipment he was then pathetic enough to give away to people who already stripped his cupboards bare. Sure, Daniel was too soft. He’d concede that.

But it was Nite Owl who fought the great underbelly of the city at Rorschach’s side, and if anyone would understand that, it was Mr No Real Name himself.

Which was why he knew it was a trap. In the absence of expressions – though the movements of his mask gave away more than he suspected Rorschach realised, to someone with time and a photographic memory – Nite Owl had been forced to become a fluent in the language of twitches. Even crouched off balance and looking away, the perfect target, Rorschach’s muscles were tense as piano wire and ready to spring.

And because Nite Owl really, really wanted to start that fight, he forced himself to relax and exhale slowly, staring at the empty street from a tear in the posters coating the window until he could hear again through the sound if his own heartbeat.

Rorschach snorted, dismissive or disappointed, and shifted to a more comfortable stance.

It was hard, waiting to ambush, and got worse as it became more obvious no one was coming. Nerves drew tighter and tighter until he felt like an over-wound watch, chafing at the snail’s passage of ordinary time. He’d slept poorly and too long and suspected the tickle in his throat from the lingering arctic chill in the bedroom would bloom into a miserable summer cold by morning. A friendly bout of mutual ass-kicking would be just what the doctor ordered, and maybe even good training for them both, but Rorschach never fought unless he meant to turn his opponent into an unconscious, handcuffed lump. It would be good to blow away the tension that had settled between them, but Note Owl knew that actually laying his hands on his partner would be the beginning of the end no matter who won.

Nite Owl was fairly sure that would be him, in any case, because Rorschach had been completely off his game tonight. In between bars, they’d chanced on a mugging. Three boys – one of the Queens Greaser crews, with oiled hair and pegged jeans, far from home territory – on a middle-aged man. One young man dug through a wallet while the other two kicked their semi-conscious victim, cheering each other on.

They moved with their usual efficiency, at first – Nite Owl grabbed the closer assailant and flung him into the opposite wall, then checked out their victim. He knew without looking that Rorschach had incapacitated the banker of the group – perhaps by a flying kick to the knee or something equally breakable – and used his body as a battering ram against the second attacker, who would just be realising their recreation had come to an abrupt end. It was one of Rorschach’s signature moves.

“Sir, can you hear me?” The pulse was strong, if erratic. A shallow cut bled into the man’s eye. He blinked and tried to shake his head.

“Try to stay still, sir. You may have internal injuries.” Nite Owl ran his hands along the man’s sides, grateful when there was no wince to indicate broken ribs. “Police and emergency medical assistance will be here with you soon.”

Nite Owl ducked as someone cursed and threw a punch near his head. He looked over to see the second assailant still on his feet, bleeding from the mouth, just as he leapt into the three-week pile of garbage that surrounded the trash cans next to him and waded through to the other side.

 _When is the goddam mayor going to get this trash strike fixed?_ Daniel grumbled from the recesses of Nite Owl’s subconscious. He watched, amazed, as his indomitable partner paused, swayed, then detoured around the pile, breaking into a sprint five paces behind the teen. The two disappeared around a dark corner.

“I’ll be right back,” he told the man, who was struggling to his feet despite Nite Owl’s instructions, and followed, rounding the corner just in time to see the mugger taken down with a flying tackle.

Rorschach straddled his chest as the boy flailed, trying to throw him off, and punched him twice. Limp body over his shoulder, he returned to the scene of the crime in the posture Nite Owl associated with extreme embarrassment. The victim had already staggered out to the main street, and was yelling about ninja assassins to a pair of startled beat cops.

“That’s our cue,” Nite Owl remarked sourly, but Rorschach had already dumped the boy with his mates and stalked off in the direction of Happy Harry’s.

Nite Owl would have thought nothing of that hesitation, if it hadn’t been combined with a much surlier than usual disposition and…the other thing.

The thing which was Rorschach touching himself.

Not sexually, no. Not really. And he didn’t seem aware he was doing it until he’d catch himself, stiffen, and drop his hand, glancing sideways at Nite Owl to see if he’d noticed.

He was doing it again, in fact. Nite Owl watched the reflection in the streaky glass tug off one glove and run a finger between his neck and scarf, absently caressing the material. Nite Owl stared at the sliver of skin this revealed.

 _All fucking night, he’s at this_ , he groaned internally.

First, he’d just pushed the trench aside to adjust his suit jacket, fingers slipping almost accidentally between two buttons to run along the ribbed vest underneath. Later, it was the sleeves. They needed to be tugged down, then pushed up on his forearms, then pulled back down again. Gloves off each time, fingers trailing around a strong wrist, then gloves forced back on with rough, embarrassed haste. But the absolute worst had been leaving Harry’s, when Rorschach had actually undone his trench, unbuttoned the suit jacket, and slowly, luxuriously, tucked in the shirt flaps that had come loose when he’d slammed their informant into the bar.

Nite Owl both blessed and cursed the stiff armor protecting his crotch.

Marsha’s towel trick hadn’t worked so well. Maybe it was different when you were undressing yourself, but when stripping another person, you were working blind and ended up with hands in…places. He’d managed to unbutton and unzip every fastener with only minor groping, but actually getting tight clothing off someone who kept struggling toward semiconsciousness just enough to roll exactly the wrong way was another matter. Gritty skin and hard muscles moved under his hands.

When they first started working together, Nite Owl had been as curious as anyone else. There was a person under that mask, and it could be anyone. It was a source of deep annoyance that his partner never reciprocated once Nite Owl was comfortable enough to ease back into Daniel in front of him, to give him fundamentally unfettered access to his home. Eventually, though, he got used to it. Unlike the Comedian, who never missed a chance to attempt ‘Twenty Questions’ with Rorschach (thus far only managing to establish that he was _not_ female, paying for the intel with a fractured nose), Daniel stopped wondering what was behind the splotches. His partner was a suit, mask, fedora, and general air of disgruntlement. The chin and lips that occasionally appeared were alien elements and disappeared as soon as the mask came back down.

Daniel suddenly added arms like a stevedore and a stomach that could crack walnuts to that general picture and found himself effortlessly imagining the rest of what lay barely hidden. Rorschach twitched under his hands and muttered nonsensical phrases, head dropping back. Daniel’s body, sure it had correctly sussed the situation, centralised every drop of blood below the waist.

Daniel wondered if a man could actually pass out from this temporary blood loss and forced several deep breaths into his lungs, insisting to himself that the situation was no sexier than a frat boy chancing on a passed-out girl at a mixer. He beat up guys like that and left them for the police to scrape off the sidewalk.

Rorschach groaned, the noise a mix of annoyance and confusion, “Dan’l…?”

Daniel’s cock throbbed. He was almost certain the eyes were opening under that mask.

It didn’t occur to him that his partner’s clothes were probably adequately loosened, and he noticed the sweat now beading on the flushed neck in a purely non-medical manner. He had a mission, dammit (get those clothes in the washing machine pronto – no, wait, keep partner from dying of dehydration!) and he would complete it.

Daniel whipped the sheet back and stripped him, top and bottom, in two efficient moves, pausing only to think, _Christ, definitely a redhead_ , before covering him again. He flipped the sheet up over his head as if Rorschach were a bird that would obediently fall asleep when covered and waited for the outraged howl.

Instead, the sheets rustled and ejected a freckled forearm, which flopped over the covered head and was still.

Daniel gathered up the clothing and buried his nose in it as he left, the stink of the fabric almost enough to subdue his erection.

When he had the house to himself again, Daniel lay in the same place (after a bewildered, unsuccessful search for the sheets) and tried to nod off. He built half a forlorn fantasy that he’d already met his partner’s secret identity on some long-ago night, given the name David and been told an equally fake name over a perfunctory and untouched drink, until hands moved under the bar in an easily decoded sequence and they stood as one and walked separately together somewhere moderately more private… But reality intruded too sharply. He just couldn’t see Rorschach in one of those places, even in a daydream. And none of those five or six men had been ginger, or more freckle than skin.

Rorschach froze, right on schedule, and tightened his scarf. The sliver of skin disappeared, but not the memory of temptation. He forced his hand back into the glove and tilted his head fractionally in Nite Owl’s direction.

Nite Owl looked away, the picture of nonchalance, and knew once again that he could have pointed and laughed with more subtlety. In the back of his head, Daniel felt somehow ashamed that anyone would find fresh clothing such a distracting novelty, especially his partner.

“We should go. Repeat inquiries.”

“It’s 3 am, Rorschach. The bars are closed, and I’m not up for any civilian B&E tonight.”

Rorschach kicked a box in frustration and faced the wall, arms folded tightly.

“What do you think is in here, anyway?” Note Owl offered as a distraction. “It’s obvious no one’s even looked at them in ages. I wonder what stock the fella couldn’t unload when he went bust?”

Rorschach shrugged.

Nite Owl ripped open the nearest box, raising a cloud of greasy dust, and laughed. “Hey Rorschach, look at these!”

He tore into the plastic bag inside and grabbed a handful of chattering teeth. They spilled to the floor with a clatter. Rorschach tilted his head and nudged one with his toe.

“What are these even for?”

“This must have been a novelty shop. You know, tourist junk, gag gifts, that kind of thing.” He ripped open another box and found squeaking rubber spiders. “I loved this stuff as a kid.”

Rorschach grunted and kicked the chattering teeth into a pile.

Nite Owl dug further and found salt and pepper sets in the shape of breasts, a box of ‘World’s Greatest Lover’ mugs, and a handful of pens. He flipped one upside-down and laughed.

“I even had one of these,” he said, tossing it to across the room. Rorschach tilted the pen, watched the ink flow away to remove the bathing beauty’s swimsuit, and grunted. He dropped and ground it under his shoe like a cigarette butt.

Nite Owl popped open one of the larger boxes along the wall, raising his eyebrows when it proved to contain inflatable…sheep? He read the name on the boxes (“The Famous ‘I-Love-Ewe’!”) and decided against sharing the joke.

“You try one,” he said instead, hiding a smile as Rorschach sighed tolerantly and looked at the boxes surrounding him. _We might make it to dawn without killing each other yet._

The smile faded abruptly as he removed another lid to reveal a selection of flavoured lubricant and realised exactly what kind of novelty store it had been.

“You know, what, never mind. We shouldn’t even be – ” he began, but Rorschach had already picked up a large box and opened it the expedient way, by turning it upside-down. Double-headed dildos almost the size of baseball bats rained down around his feet.

Nite Owl really, really tried to choke down the horrified laughter, but succeeded only in adding hiccups to the mix.

Rorschach tackled him to the floor and straddled his chest, knocking the wind out of him. For one terrifying moment, his lungs struggled to prioritise a hiccup against a desperate gasp for air and failed to achieve either, but a glimpse of his partner’s roiling mask scared the hiccups away for good. He thought of the mugger earlier and flinched, expecting the same blows.

“Look,” Nite Owl squeaked, gasping in another short, painful breath. “Sorry. I didn’t. Know.”

The blotches shifted from something like a moth to something like a bull’s skull. He was breathing hard through his nose and growling with every exhale, clearly beyond his comparatively conversational rants on the city’s degenerate perverts.

“And I’m sorry. About touching. Your stuff. It clearly dis. Turbed your. Your groove. If you will. And I’ll. Never – ”

Rorschach wrenched his mask up to his nose and came down for the kill, horns becoming wings.

It was the worst kiss that ever made him instantly hard.

It missed his mouth completely, for a start. _How much can he really see through that thing?_ the small and clearly insane voice of Daniel wondered from well underneath Nite Owl’s overwhelming terror. Teeth scraped along his chin before rough lips found his and settled heavily, unmoving.

Nite Owl tried to breathe through his nose, smelling sandalwood and, for some reason, industrial-grade pineapple.

Rorschach pulled back, tilted his head to the familiar ‘formulating plan B’ angle, then grabbed a double handful of Nite Owl’s cape and yanked him upward. Teeth settled in his bottom lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.

Nite Owl groaned, only half in pain, and managed to get one glove off by trapping his hand under his back and yanking it away. Rorschach shifted easily with the movement. He slid his bare hand under Rorschach’s scarf and dragged his fingernails along that tormenting stretch of skin below the mask, still waiting for the inevitable punch.

When a few more seconds passed, he sprang to take advantage of this brief, mad window of opportunity and got his other arm around Rorschach’s waist, under the trench, pulling him closer. Rorschach released his lip, which flopped back against his teeth with a small, undignified _plop_. He pressed forward, capturing those lips with his own, and felt a high, sharp cheekbone brush against his face. More information for his mental picture – there was at least one cheek under the mask.

Kissing Rorschach was a new experience. Nite Owl was lost in the feel of skin and the bead of sweat that dropped from the crumpled edge of the mask to his neck, but Daniel watched and analysed. Whatever Nite Owl did, Rorschach imitated a moment later, clumsier and with more teeth. Nite Owl ducked to kiss the skin beneath the mask at his jaw, feeling the pulse fluttering at his lips. Rorschach nudged Nite Owl’s chin out of the way and nipped along his exposed neck.

 _I’ll be in turtlenecks all week,_ Nite Owl thought, and didn’t care one bit. He pushed the hood from his head, taking the goggles with it, and the room plunged into shadow. He reached carefully forward, picturing the familiar chin, the chipped teeth that had never suffered braces, and rested his fingertips on the twitching skin.

He pushed a little further, running his tongue across the rough lips and between to the suddenly clenched teeth, wondering if this liberty would shatter the spell that let them lay together on a filthy floor necking like kids. But Rorschach, after a long pause, reflected this too, lips opening fractionally under Nite Owl’s. Nite Owl pressed his advantage, tongue darting inside to taste the back of Rorschach’s teeth.

Rorschach made strangled noises deep in his throat, like a heartbroken boy trying not to sob.

When Nite Owl pulled away to breathe, Rorschach kissed the corner of his mouth, almost gently. Nite Owl hadn’t been so close to coming in his pants from heavy petting since Daniel was a teenager. He winced to think of cleaning that mess out of the interlinked armor.

He let his head drop to the floor and pushed lightly on Rorschach’s shoulders. Rorschach jumped at the touch and scrambled backwards, stumbling over Nite Owl’s feet. He focused on unsexy thoughts – stripping and rebuilding Archie’s engine, UN debate transcripts, Aunt Mabel playing tennis – until the moment passed.

There was something sticky under his shoulder and spreading. Nite Owl touched it with his gloved hand and realised they’d shattered a bottle of lubrication – pineapple flavour. It gave Nite Owl wonderful ideas, or tried to; his mind balked at believing he was that lucky.

Rorschach crouched nearby, leaning on his hands like a sprinter waiting for the pistol’s crack. It was a new addition to Nite Owl’s nonverbal Rorschach dictionary, not keeping perfectly still so much as simultaneously running out the door and drawing closer.

“C’mere,” Nite Owl said. “Just needed to catch my breath. You knocked it out of me.”

When Rorschach didn’t move, he scooted over and pulled him close. His partner shivered under his arms, and Nite Owl saw teeth biting into his bottom lip. More obvious evidence of his arousal dug into Nite Owl’s leg, moving in the rhythmic tortured nudges of someone trying very hard not to move at all. It was a relief, oddly, that he wasn’t the only one dangling over the abyss. That this wasn’t some obscure form of punishment, keying him up and then smugly abandoning him.

Nite Owl slid his hands underneath Rorschach’s suit jacket and pulled the shirttails out his trousers, wanting to touch that pale skin again, but his partner stiffened and started to pull away.

“Okay, it’s okay,” Nite Owl soothed, holding him firmly. “Clothes stay.”

He ducked to bury his nose in the loosened scarf, smelling sweat and arousal. He whispered, “What do you want?”

A long minute passed while Rorschach hunched his shoulders. Finally he shrugged. “This,” he muttered, hands moving restlessly along Nite Owl’s sides.

 _He picked a hell of a time to go sub-verbal on the specifics of fornication_ , Nite Owl groaned, but purely internally.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” he offered hesitantly.

Nite Owl felt the flush that spread under his ungloved hand through two layers of clothing. Rorschach shook his head.

Nite Owl waited for another response while outside entire species evolved and went extinct. Losing patience, he started again, “You want…?”

Rorschach pushed him flat and hovered over his face for a moment. Nite Owl tried not to look terrified. He seemed to come to a decision and dropped back between Nite Owl’s spread legs, fumbling with his utility belt.

After a few heartbeats, he grunted, “How do you…?”

“There’s a clasp, under the crescent. Right there.”

Then his erection was gloriously free of confinement, bobbing alone for a long moment before his partner encased it in a tentative leather fist. Rorschach lowered himself until he lay nearly flat, elbows digging into Nite Owl’s thighs.

A warm mouth slipped over the head of his cock, freezing when he moaned.

“No, s’good,” he mumbled urgently. “S’a happy noise.”

It moved carefully down his length until lips met fist, then lowered the fist a finger at a time. With one finger left, Nite Owl’s cock bumped into the back of his throat and was quickly removed. He added his middle finger back to his grip and nodded to himself, before trying again. Slowly, down and back up, teeth dragging, then once again with more confidence. Rorschach’s spare hand moved awkwardly from thigh to hip before settling on his stomach. Daniel was observing again, feeling like a science experiment, picturing Rorschach with a clipboard and a long white labcoat.

 _Shit,_ he thought giddily, _Now I’m gonna get wood every time I go to the doctor_.

He tried to reach behind Rorschach’s head to guide his strokes, but the other man only shook his head and stopped until the hands were removed. Nite Owl grabbed a double fistful of his own cloak instead. _Fine, I can work with this. This is fine. Oh God, I can work with this…_

Rorschach shifted back up to his knees, and Nite Owl heard the pop of a button and the soft zhuzh of a zipper sliding down. His partner’s entire body began to rock with the movements of his head.

Daniel thought of Rorschach’s kissing and decided to try an experiment of his own. He raised and lowered his hips, just slightly, in the rhythm he needed. Rorschach picked it up after a few strokes, and the two of them rocked together. Nite Owl wished now for his goggles, to see more than a vague, shifting pattern. To see what those lips looked like stretched around his cock.

 _So close…_

Rorschach froze abruptly, whimpered, and nearly clenched his teeth. Nite Owl jumped at the sudden pressure on his oversensitive skin, but Rorschach seemed to catch himself just in time and start pulling away.

Throwing caution to the wind, Nite Owl grabbed Rorschach’s head and pumped hard into his mouth, once, twice… He meant to warn him, but all that came out was a panicked squeak.

“Hnnk!,” Rorschach coughed and compulsively swallowed, wiping his mouth with the less soiled glove. He rested his forehead on Nite Owl’s thigh, gasping for breath, tolerating the hand that loosely cupped his jaw.

Later, as they faced opposite walls and pulled their armor back in place, Nite Owl wondered if they should talk, and knew they wouldn’t. The door handle rattled before he could decide what to do about that.

Rorschach clamped his hat back on his head and turned eagerly toward the noise. Rumpled, sweaty, clothes lined with grime from the floor, he looked more like himself. Nite Owl caught his gaze and nodded. They both stepped back into the shadows.

The first man entered carrying an ordinary shopping bag, looking over his shoulder.

“Look,” he said in the tone of voice usually reserved for: _I swear to god, I’ll turn this car around_ , “I know we’re gonna take a bath on it, but no one here will buy it. Rocky can dump it in Baltimore, and, any problems, they’ll never trace it back to us.”

“No one’s got to know – ” one of his compatriots began, breaking off as Rorschach kicked the door shut behind the three of them.

“Too late,” he growled, almost happily, and the first man dropped the bag.

“Oh Jesus…”

* * *

They didn’t want for the police to arrive this time, heading instead toward the dock where Archie was hidden. The smell of the Hudson was strong.

Rorschach consulted his battered A-Z map. “As I suspected – the drop point isn’t far from here. Five minutes away, tops.”

Nite Owl grunted.

“Could scout it out tonight,” Rorschach offered. “Choose our vantage point. Block any inconvenient exits.”

Nite Owl saw the logic of that plan, but Daniel was creeping to the fore under the hood. Daniel wanted breakfast, aspirin, and sleep, and then maybe a year or two to review the night. “I doubt that Rocky will even show up, once he hears what happened to his friends.”

But Rorschach practically thrummed with energy. “Maybe he’ll sleep all day like some people, and miss the news.”

Was Rorschach actually teasing him?

“Sure, pal. Let go get ‘em.”


End file.
